In a conventional Radio Access Network (RAN) architecture, radio base stations are provided. Such radio base stations include radio transceiver circuitry for communicating with user devices over a wireless interface. The radio base stations also include baseband processing circuitry, for converting signals received over the wireless interface into a form that can be transmitted over a backhaul link to a core network, and equally can convert signals received from the core network into a form that can be transmitted over the wireless interface. A new RAN architecture has been introduced, in which the baseband has been decoupled from the radio and placed in centralized site. In such an architecture, a pool of Digital Units (DU) receives mobile traffic originated by clusters of Remote Radio Units (RRU) over Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI) flows. Baseband processing of the physical layer (PHY or L1), the datalink layer (L2) and the network layer (L3) is carried out in the Digital Units.
When a legacy operator builds a network using this new RAN architecture, it will often have legacy Radio Base Stations in its existing cell sites. In addition, it can still be appropriate to install new Radio Base Stations (for example pico Radio Base Stations, or Wi-Fi access points) in some cases. In such a situation, it is convenient to be able to use the same network infrastructure to transport Ethernet traffic, from such Radio Base Stations on the same physical infrastructure as the Common Public Radio Interface traffic flowing between the RRUs and the DUs.
However, current transport solutions do not address how the transport network can concurrently cope with these various radio layer requirements in providing, and dynamically adjusting, the connectivity service offered to the client radio layer. This limitation can result in a bandwidth waste or in reduced service levels.